Police back lower CBD speed limit

Alice Springs police say a recommendation to reduce speed limits in the town centre makes sense and will not cause congestion.

A recommendation to reduce speed limits in the town centre from 60 to 40 kilometres an hour will be put to a vote at the next Alice Springs Town Council meeting.

Superintendent Sean Parnell says motorists are almost forced to travel at that speed anyway.

"It's a small area, we're not talking about the whole of town. We're actually just talking about that CBD area where quite often the speed that cars travel around there is quite slow anyway because there's a lot of vehicular traffic and also pedestrians getting around," he said.

"Certainly you want the CBD, where there are a lot of people and pedestrians and people walking around, particularly with the roundabouts ... to be safe when there's traffic around and I wouldn't imagine it would be a great impost in the CBD to have the speed limit lowered to 40."